


but if you turn your hands to flames, oh the light will burn the same

by weatheredlaw



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Alternate Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-22
Updated: 2012-04-22
Packaged: 2017-11-04 02:56:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/pseuds/weatheredlaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the beach town of Domino, Yugi carries a goldfish in a bowl with him from place to place, Joey just wants to understand, and Tristan really needs to get home and make dinner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but if you turn your hands to flames, oh the light will burn the same

**Author's Note:**

> i write yugioh au's like it's my second job, so here's another one for your entertainment. part of a group.

The boy had been carrying the fish to school for several days. It wasn't unusual -- Joey had seen Yugi do stranger things, and to greater fanfare. He was an odd, quiet boy, who played chess in the park with the old geezers who spent their entire afternoons by the beach, waiting for a worthy opponent. Yugi always won. Joey knew -- he was always watching from the bushes.

"You're pathetic," Tristan said, after the third week of watching. "Just _ask_ him what the fish is for."

"Can't. Too easy. He'd sense a trap."

"Jesus, Joey, it's not a _trap_ , you're just wondering is all. Or are you planning something else?"

"Can it." Tristan sighed and went back to watching the clouds float by, chewing on a piece of grass and wishing for this whole thing to just be over. He had dinner to cook for his sister and the baby, and his mother would be home from work late and she'd be hungry, too. He was thinking about going fishing, or at the very least getting something cheap from the anglers coming in from the deep, when a shock of wild hair appeared directly over his face. 

"Are you two spying on me?" Yugi didn't seem angry at all -- more...pleased than anything else. Joey _shrieked_ and tried to hide, but it sent Yugi into a fit of laughter that Tristan found strangely endearing. He was a nice kid, afterall. Everyone said so. 

"Not me," Tristan said, hands in the air. "I'm going fishing."

"Good day for fishing," Yugi said wisely. Tristan nodded and gave him a quick smile before abandoning Joey. He'd get an earful later, but he had things to do, and Joey was an idiot. An idiot he cared about, but an idiot either way.

 

 

Joey pointed to the fish. "What's it for?"

"For?" Yugi frowned. "It's not _for_ anything. It's just a fish."

"You've been carrying it around like it's important."

"Well it's my pet, isn't it? I can carry it around if I want to."

"People do not just _carry fish around with them._ It isn't normal." At this, Yugi began to laugh. He put a gentle hand on Joey's shoulder and pushed himself off the ground, careful to shift the fish in its bowl from one arm to the next. "I..."

"You're funny, Joey. We should hang out more." Joey watched the fish give him a very pointed stare and felt very strongly that it was trying to tell him something. 

"Huh?"

"I said that I liked you. What's wrong?" Yugi followed Joey's gaze to the fish bowl and, for the first time that Joey could remember, he blushed. "Oh. Uh...sorry. About him. He's...uh...I...I gotta go. See you in school!" Yugi clutched the bowl to his chest and took off down the street, disappearing around a corner. Joey sat very still for a while. It was not often that a goldfish stunned him into silence. 

The sun was beginning to go down. His dad would be getting ready for work -- if he waited a while longer, he'd miss him completely. 

Quietly, Joey stood and made his way to the beach, watching the sun begin to sink below the horizon. 

 

 

Yugi sprinted up the stairs past the shop and his grandfather, shutting the door behind him. A bit of water from the bowl shloshed onto his shirt. He set it on his desk and collapsed on the bed.

_He shouldn't stare._

"And you should be nicer! Honestly, are you ever going to get tired of being a _fish_?" Yugi sat up and stared at the bowl. "Joey's just curious. And you probably scared him off for good."

_Don't know why you'd want to be friends with him. He's obnoxious._

"You're obnoxious," Yugi countered, but he was too tired to argue with his pet-turned-ancient-spirit. Not tonight, anyway. He heard his grampa singing in the kitchen and the smell of fish curry wafted into the room. Yugi's stomach growled. "You just...stay here and think about what you've done."

_Ah, no moonlit strolls for me tonight then?_

"Oh, shut up."

In the kitchen, the scratchy music from the record player grew louder. Yugi turned it down a bit before getting out the plates. His grampa turned around, grinning. "You're home then!"

"Mmhm." Yugi dug into his pockets and fished out some cash. "I won thirty bucks today." He put it into the jar set along the back counter by the spices and smiled.

"In chess?"

"No. In duel monsters, at the bookstore after school. Someone bet me money, and I won." His grampa nodded and spooned a ladel of curry into a bowl. "Is mom home?"

"She's in her room." Yugi wordlessly put her plate back in the cabinet and went to pour himself some lemonade instead. His grampa cleared his throat. "I'll need you to work the shop this weekend. I've got to go North to see a friend."

Yugi nodded. "I can do that."

"She'll probably rest most of the time."

"Yeah...I know." Yugi's mind flashed back to the fish, and the puzzle, and the wishes he'd been promised -- the bundle of them, all as gold as the skin of the fish, as hopeful as he had tried to be his whole life. "I'll take care of everything."

Smiling, his grampa reached across the table as they sat down and patted his hand. "I know you will."


End file.
